Barriers to Practitioners' Endorsement of a Recovery Perspective

This chapter is concerned with the impact of practitioner biases on the experience of a meaningful life for individuals who live with serious mental illness (SMI). Professional biases, systemic biases that originate in societal fear and lack of knowledge, and internalized stigma taken on by the consumer affect life decisions. Following a history of treatment initiatives experienced by consumers as abusive, it is important to understand how a system envisioned to protect and treat was often experienced as harmful. In the 1980s a movement emerged to transform the nature of mental health treatment to a client-centered, recovery-oriented model. In 1999, the Surgeon General proclaimed that all agencies serving this population should be recovery oriented. Yet, the shift to this approach to understanding people with SMI has not been complete. While there are many explanations why practitioners may not fully embrace this perspective, this chapter introduces the concept of “schemas” from cognitive behavioral theory as a way of examining professional biases in the field of SMI.